Conventionally, the structural assembly of aircraft fuselage parts (e.g., fuselage sections to be spliced together or for joining wing ribs to the wing skins) includes the use of temporary fasteners (e.g., “Cleco fasteners”) for providing a temporary clamp force onto the parts package to be joined. The thus clamped parts of the package are then drilled by semi-automatic drilling systems or assemblies known in the art, for example by the systems and techniques disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,560,102 and 6,073,326, the entire contents of each being expressly incorporated hereinto by reference). The temporarily joined parts of the package are thereafter disassembled for the purpose of deburring and to remove chips resulting from the drilling step that may have become lodged between the parts of the package being joined. In the case of fuselage segment assembly, the orbital splices and longitudinal stringer splices are typically installed in separated stages (steps).
As one illustrative example to understand the background of the embodiments described herein, orbital splices and longitudinal stringers are junction elements which are used to provide the junction of two aircraft fuselage segments. These two structural elements (i.e., the orbital splices and the longitudinal stringers) are joined to fuselage skin elements in the region of the junction of the two segments of the fuselage and thus become part of the fuselage structure. Since the step of joining the orbital splices to the fuselage skin involves drilling through the adjacent structural elements, there may be an accumulation of burrs between the parts (e.g., between the fuselage skin and the orbital splices). The same problem may occur during the process of joining the longitudinal stringers to the fuselage skin.
Accompanying FIGS. 1A and 1B depict schematically the drilling process to join an aircraft skin 10 to an underlying structural support 12 of an aircraft fuselage. As is seen, the skin 10 and support 12 are temporarily joined to one another by means of Cleco fasteners 14 positioned in a hole formed in the parts to be occupied later by a permanent rivet. When drilling, e.g., with bit 16, there is the possibility that metallic chips (shown schematically by reference numeral 20 in FIG. 1B) may become lodged between the skin 10 and the support 12, e.g., due to the inadequate clamping forces of the Cleco fasteners 14 which can allow the skin 10 to flex outwardly away from the support 12. These chips 20 must therefore be removed before final assembly that is effected thereby increasing the assembly time and costs.
It would therefore be especially desirable if an assembly technique was provided which addressed the problems noted previously with regard to the conventional techniques to assemble aircraft structural components. It is therefore towards providing solutions to such problems that the embodiments disclosed herein are directed.